


in each small grief

by mayleavestars



Category: Homestuck
Genre: ....Mostly, Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen, Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon, Missing Scene, The Homestuck Epilogues: Candy, accidentally became more about vrisrezi than originally intended, dec 2020 update I can officially claim this fic is better than post hiatus hs2 (:, narrative relevance, processing having a secret sister with someone who's only kind of heard of sisters, processing living on an arguably fake planet with a walking commentary on narrative relevance, rosemary/vrisrezi contrasting, story of my life rn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25694614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayleavestars/pseuds/mayleavestars
Summary: Following an accidental feelings jam with her ancestor, Vrissy Maryam-Lalonde learns a little bit about envy, relevance, controversy, unresolved love, resolved love, each of her mothers, and the dangers of all of the above.A universe away, Terezi Pyrope avoids a run-in with truth, relevance, and essentiality.
Relationships: Kanaya Maryam & Vriska Serket, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam (mentioned), Rose Lalonde/Terezi Pyrope, Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket, Vriska Serket & Vriska Lalonde
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	in each small grief

**Author's Note:**

> "i only work on one project at a time", i said, and then got vriska and vrissy brainworms and had to write this all down right now immediately 
> 
> the title is from "introduction to quantum theory" by franny choi, a wonderful poem that deserves a lot better than to be yoinked for the purpose of titling my fanfiction. please look it up!

VRISKA: Not g8nna lie, now that you've put it to me like that, the whole thing is pretty fucked up.

Vrissy Maryam-Lalonde wonders if she has made a mistake. 

It’s a clear-aired early morning on the airship; both Harry and Tavros are still asleep, and the adults are doing meaningless plotting somewhere inside. But Vrissy had emerged onto its deck to find her ancestor squinting in suspicion at Earth C's pale sun and saturated sky. The silly orange robes have been ditched in favor of yesterday’s beat-up jacket and stolen teal bandana, though she’d managed to acquire jeans without clown blood on them.

The two Serkets had stood side-by-side in the light of morning, and the events of last night had come back to Vrissy bit by bit, until she’d impulsively spilled everything she’d thought about the existence of Her New Sister, Yiffany, to her ancestor. An act which, having immediately finished doing it, she finds mortifying in a wide variety of ways. 

VRISSY: Oh, that’s a 8it Dramatic. It’s not that 8ig of a deal.  
VRISKA: I’M 8eing dramatic?! You’re the one who’s up here crying to me a8out it! And I almost don’t 8lame you, 8ecause the whole thing is un8elieva8ly stupid.  
VRISSY: I guess next to having a Giant Spider live in your 8asement, it all sounds pretty Trivial, though.  
VRISKA: Thanks for summing up my home life so delic8ly, kid.  
VRISSY: You think it's Pretty Stupid. I knew you would. I guess I even Get It.  
VRISKA: Yeah, pretty stupid that Lalonde and Harley would do that 8ehind your 8acks!  
VRISKA: I thought it was funny yesterday and it kind of is, 8ut it’s also just another way in which your planet’s fucked up!  
VRISKA: I thought you said Rose and Kanaya were just 8oring regular parents!

This isn’t exactly the reaction Vrissy had expected. She’d envisioned the interaction more in terms of Vriska calling it all ‘stupid irrelevant su8ur8an soap opera 8ullshit.’ It would have been nice, in a way, for someone to have called her life unforgivably stupid. Anxiety-inducing, yes, like most things about Vriska were. But kind of nice. 

VRISSY: I thought you’d say something like, “This is all Stupid Irrelevant Su8ur8an Soap Opera 8ullshit.”  
VRISKA: Well, it still sucks that you have to live in it.  
VRISKA: It’s like I was saying yesterday.  
VRISKA: This world is 8oring and sucks, except in the ways that it ISN'T boring, 8ecause apparently Crocker’s a fucking fascist and no8ody’s even happy!  
VRISKA: What’s the point of 8eing stupid and irrelevant if you l8sers aren’t even managing to not kill each other or, like, communicate and have happy marriages and shit!  
VRISSY: Wow, you’re, like, Really Good at Feelings Jams.  
VRISKA: In the single functional rel8tionship I’ve ever had, I was fucking gr8 at feelings jams, 8ctually, so step off.  
VRISSY: May8e I didn’t even want a Feelings Jam.  
VRISSY: May8e I needed someone to valid8 the fact that this is all Incredi8ly Fucking Stupid.  
VRISKA: Oh, I know it is. 

As they speak, the sun climbs into the sky as it does every morning, and light floods the deck of the ship. The Thief of Light’s face is illuminated by her aspect, but she averts her eyes from the sun. Back when she was reading up on Some Lore, when having gods for parents was still kind of cool, Vrissy had tried sometimes to picture the Alternian sun. Her mom had called it beautiful, of course, warm and inviting and unimaginably bright. But she knows her ancestor has a somewhat different history with it. 

Vriska had claimed to be Gr8 At Feelings Jams with a characteristic smugness, but there is, without a doubt, something pensive present in her expression now. Vrissy remembers yesterday's conversation and wonders if her ancestor, too, is remembering the Alternian sun, and the girl who once looked directly into it. 

VRISSY: I just h8 that I’m the only one who’s mad a8out it.  
VRISSY: Harry and Tav 8oth seem to think Mom is too, and she’s just 8etter at hiding it or something. 8ut that’s o8viously 8ullshit.  
VRISKA: Who, Kanaya? She was pissed. O8viously she was, even I could tell. How’ve you gotten this far in life without 8eing a8le to read your parents’ moods?  
VRISKA:  
VRISSY:  
VRISKA: That is to say........  
VRISKA: I’m glad you don’t have to?

Vrissy is not familiar with the in-depth details of Vriska’s childhood, but she knows the basics. Once again, she feels stupid for even bothering Vriska with this shit, and feels _extra_ stupid for feeling stupid. In her sixteen years of life, it’s not an emotion she’s felt often. The silence stretches just a moment too long.

VRISKA: Ugh, forget I said anything.  
VRISKA: Point is, Kanaya’s angry. And she should 8e!  
VRISKA: Lalonde used to get on my nerves sometimes, you know.  
VRISKA: Sometimes she talked to me like we were the same, 8ut we weren't. Like, oh, 8oo, hoo, your thinkpan got a case of the tent8cles against your will once.  
VRISKA: She was so junior level!!!! All those 8ullshit implic8tions a8out how she wasn't meant for happiness. Point of reference, Vrissy, until you've done your first murder you don't get to pretend you're controversial.  
VRISSY: Considering my mom is Classified As A Terrorist, I would say she’s Pretty Fucking Controversial.  
VRISKA: 8luh, not in the way that counts. At least not compara8ly to...  
VRISKA: Fuck, the point is, your mom never had to prove she was a hero. Everyone who mattered already knew that.  
VRISKA: And then she managed to fuck up anyway, al8eit in a 8oring, o8jectively stupid kind of way. It’s em8arassing is what it is.  
VRISKA: Like, someone cut poor Fussyfangs a 8r8k from 8eing screwed over 8y Light players.  
VRISSY: Light Players?  
VRISSY: ........  
VRISSY: W8!!!!!!!!!  
VRISSY: YOU D8TED MY MOM?!  
VRISKA: Calm the fuck down, it was just in diamonds.  
VRISKA: I was a shitty kid and she dumped me.  
VRISSY: ::::O  
VRISKA: Yeah! It kinda sucked, actually. 8ut I pro8a8ly deserved it? She just stopped answering my messages one day.  
VRISKA: Then she punched me in the f8ce. 8ut I definitely deserved that.  
VRISSY: No way!  
VRISSY: If Mom ever saw someone before my other mom, I always assumed she’d end it in the most 8oring way possible. Maybe a Strongly Worded Letter.  
VRISKA: You have a really misguided image of who Kanaya actually is, don’t you?  
VRISKA: In hindsight, she reminds me a little of Terezi.  
VRISKA: They 8oth used to think it was cool and epic when they pretended they didn’t have feelings! Or at least that their feelings couldn't 8e hurt.  
VRISKA: And I even 8ought into it sometimes. But all that really m8de me is a sucker!  
VRISSY: And all that stuff about pretending not to c8re is not Applica8le to you at all?  
VRISKA: O8viously not. No8ody is 8etter than Vriska Serket at 8eing transparent.  
VRISKA: Anyway, this isn’t a8out me. This is a8out your mom.  
VRISKA: Like, use your thinkpan for two seconds, Vrissy. Kanaya chainsawed a guy in half once!  
VRISSY: Yeah, I Know. Don’t Condescend to me, I told you I knew some Lore.  
VRISSY: 8ut that was when she was young and Actually Cool.  
VRISSY: And I know she’s leading a revolution now and it’s a 8ig Deal!  
VRISSY: 8ut it’s not the same. My parents aren’t Cool in the same way you are.  
VRISKA: UGH, I told you!  
VRISKA: I may 8e the coolest and most 8adass person on this pl8net 8ut I am not a f8cking role model!!!!!!!!  
VRISKA: The only place imitating my ancestor ever got me was ruining the lives of some people who really did n8t deserve it.  
VRISSY: The amount of Cognitive Dissonance you’re giving me is a P8in In The Fucking Ass.  
VRISKA: Yeah, that’s all part of the 8rand.  
VRISKA: You’re a Maryam and a Lalonde, 8ut you’re a Serket, too, somewhere.  
VRISKA: Which m8kes you kind of the most terrifying person ever? So the fact that you're pretty much normal is impressive.

Vrissy finds herself smiling uncertainly, not sure if 'normal' is a real compliment or not.

For a long moment, the two girls stand on the deck in mutual silence. Below them, the forests of Earth C roll by. Vrissy does not think of them as unnaturally green any more than she would find the sky unnaturally blue. This is her planet. She has never had cause to doubt its realness attribute, because she lives there. If someone bothered to do it in front of her, she thinks, the way Vriska has hinted at sometimes, she feels as if she'd need to defend it. Or not. She's been calling it lame for her entire life, hasn't she? But she lives here, after all, so, like, she's allowed to, whereas interlopers from truer and more relevant places are on thin fucking ice.

VRISKA: I'm sorry a8out your family.  
VRISKA: 8ut may8e your sister’s cool?  
VRISKA: I only ever had a sister in the pseudo-metaphorical w8y that’s disconnected entirely from how humans see it, and also pro8a8ly not compati8le with it due to certain human social conventions Lalonde hammered into me?  
VRISKA: 8ut with those stipulations, it was nice.  
VRISKA: And it sounds like this Yiffany kid’s life has 8een kinda shitty.  
VRISSY: I still don’t get why you even C8re. Ag8in, isn’t this universe Stupid and Irrelevant?  
VRISKA: May8e! I mean, who the fuck knows.  
VRISKA: I’m not so sure anymore.  
VRISKA: I’m not sure I ever knew for real what was relevant and what wasn’t. May8e that’s why I’m stuck here now.  
VRISKA: Didn’t learn it soon enough.  
VRISKA: 8ut may8e your moms were given something good and Lalonde risked throwing it all away, which is the kind of unforgivea8ly stupid 8ullshit I’m on record as h8ving exlusive rights to!  
VRISKA: May8e when I took on Lord English and left... left the r8st 8f you l8sers to fuck up this universe, may8e I was doing it so these assholes c8uld have an actual sh8t at 8eing happy! Get stupid human m8rried and ad8pt their stupid gru8s and give them stupid happy childhoods.  
VRISKA: ........  
VRISKA: No offense.  
VRISSY: None T8ken.  
VRISKA: I hung around your moms a lot on that meteor. Sometimes including when they didn’t want me around, haha.  
VRISKA: I was sure they’d 8e the ones........  
VRISKA: If someone on that stupid rock I grew up on actually got the chance for all that 8oring, soppy happiness 8ullshit, I was sure it would 8e them.  
VRISKA: I’m sure I would have sucked at it. 8ut may8e not for good! Like I said, may8e some version of me........  
VRISKA: Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Vrissy isn’t sure she’s meant to see Vriska’s hand briefly touch the pocket where she’s keeping the stolen phone. She also isn’t sure this would be a welcome question. She asks anyway, because she has to start asserting herself again sometime, and it might as well be now.

VRISSY: Did she ever Text 8ack?  
VRISKA: ........  
VRISKA: No.  
VRISKA: We’re not talking a8out it.  
VRISSY: Fair Enough.  
VRISSY: Thanks for the Talk, anyway.

Vriska gives Vrissy a companionable clap on the shoulder.

VRISKA: Gotta 8e there for my descendants in an explicitly non-emulatory way.

-

Elsewhere, in the distant reaches of space… 

ROSE: You should say it one of these days, you know. The money line. It would be rather maudlin, of course, but perhaps that's worth it sometimes. All narratives deserve a touch of sentimentality, and you have at times been maudlin already.  
TEREZI: >:?  
ROSE: It would be, maybe... “You were supposed to be the happy ones. You got to be her, got a chance at a life with her, and you fucking left.”  
ROSE: Something like that. I’m sure you could phrase it in a more original way, of course. There's a reason you aren't narrating, but you do have a knack for rewriting.   
ROSE: The line would be followed by a significant pause, in which we realize you've revealed more than you'd wanted to. We’d rehash conversations we've already had, and I'd be quite subtle about pointing out your blatant show of projection. And we would both envy your past self’s conviction that getting the chance to be with someone is what makes you happy. Or that happiness has ever mattered in the way that we once thought it did.  
TEREZI: YOU SUR3 DO SOUND L1K3 YOU TH1NK YOU KNOW 4 LOT 4BOUT M3  
ROSE: Your words might even be emotionally affecting. I am sure a contingent of our audience would be deeply moved by such an unsubtle indication of your feelings about -  
TEREZI: D1RK H4S A PO1NT 4BOUT PR3C1S3LY ON3 TH1NG  
TEREZI: J4MM1NG 4BOUT OUR STUP1D F33L1NGS 4LL TH3 T1M3 1S 4 W4STE OF...  
TEREZI: WH4T WOULD YOU C4LL 1T?  
TEREZI: N4RR4T1V3 SP4C3  
ROSE: Have it your way, Terezi. It's probably for the best, really.  
ROSE: But you can’t run from canon.  
ROSE: If anyone’s feelings were to be qualified as true, relevant, and essential, they would have once, without dispute, been yours.  
ROSE: I am told they have been called the axis of an epic.  
ROSE: Arguably so, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr - [mayleavestars](https://mayleavestars.tumblr.com)
> 
> brand new and mostly-empty twitter - [astralambiguity](https://twitter.com/astralambiguity)
> 
> if you've read this far, thanks for reading! <3 congratulations, you've officially been suckered into reading something deeply pretentious under the guise of fun vrissy content. also!!! big shoutout to [THIS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIG5l6IdJrE&list=WL&index=46&t=0s) sahcon talk, which played a big role in motivating me to reread the epilogues with a closer eye than i'd read them originally and give post canon content a shot.
> 
> 8/4 update: holy shit friendship ended with google docs, it autocorrected yiffany to tiffany???? now fixed!


End file.
